Vampire News Bites: Nicolas Cage in Costume as Dracula, Footage of AMC’s ‘Interview with the Vampire,’ and More
Earlier this month, Nosferatu turned 100, so as the year rolls on and we enter a new Vampire Movie Century, I thought I’d take a look at what’s going on around the catacomb.
This roundup of recent vampire movie and TV news is the result of me hanging social media and the film blogosphere upside-down from a tree and draining everything worth reprinting into a blood bucket. I like to think Motion Bitcher has its finger on the pulse of vampire entertainment in Hollywood.
Of course, such entertainment really has no pulse because it is undead. Nevertheless, I invite you to follow along with me here as I survey all the latest genre developments.
A brief rundown of some of what’s covered in this post:
Renfield has a release date and we have our first look at Nicolas Cage in costume as Dracula.
The first footage of AMC’s Interview with the Vampire is online and the series has found its interviewer.
Vampires in America and Morbius have both dropped trailers.
Guess who Sarah Michelle Gellar thinks should succeed her as this generation’s Slayer.
Reginald the Vampire has lined up a streaming home ahead of its summer Syfy premiere.
And more!
Renfield
Renfield has begun shooting in New Orleans, with the official Universal Monsters account sharing a neat retro logo on Instagram for the upcoming horror-comedy about Dracula’s henchman, played by Nicholas Hoult. As you can see from the clapperboard below, Renfield is directed by Chris McKay (The Tomorrow War, The Lego Batman Movie), with cinematographer Mitchell Amundsen serving as camera operator on Day 1, by the looks of it.
Oscar nominee Shohreh Aghdashloo (House of Sand and Fog) confirmed on Twitter that she has also joined the cast of Renfield. Her role is reportedly that of a crime lord in New Orleans. Nicolas Cage co-stars as Dracula, with Awkwafina playing Renfield’s love interest, a traffic cop.
The film has locked in a release date of April 14, 2023 (per Deadline). That means it won’t be out in time for the Year of the Vampire, but it will be ready to help further coagulate the next Vampire Movie Century. Universal’s The Last Voyage of the Demeter, which is based on the “Log of the Demeter” chapter of Dracula, is also due out a few months earlier on January 27, 2023.
More recently, People obtained exclusive photos giving us our first look at Cage in costume as Dracula on the Renfield set.
Cage played a man with delusions of vampirism in another horror-comedy, Vampire’s Kiss, released in 1988. All I can say is, seeing him in a red velvet suit and pasty white make-up is *chef’s kiss*.
Renfield stems from a pitch by Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman and the script is penned by Ryan Ridley.
‘Interview with the Vampire’ TV Series
Elsewhere in New Orleans, there are vampire interviews coming together. AMC+ has debuted the first few glimpses of footage from its new adaptation of Interview with the Vampire in a promo for its 2022 lineup of shows. The promo may start off with Bob Odenkirk saying, “Who’s here to see Saul Goodman?” but as much as I like Better Call Saul, I am mainly here to see Game of Thrones alum Jacob Anderson take on the role Brad Pitt made famous.
Come for Anderson as Louis; stay for Sam Reid as Lestat in the Interview with the Vampire series.
You’ve got to love the trailer voice talking about things coming alive right as the promo lands on the first shot of the undead. Louis and Lestat appear to be seated on a park bench in the shadow of St. Louis Cathedral. It’s the oldest cathedral in North America and it’s right in the heart of the French Quarter.
In other news, Variety reports that Pulitzer Prize-nominated playwright, screenwriter, and actor Eric Bogosian will portray the interviewer, Daniel Molloy, in Interview with the Vampire. Showrunner Rolin Jones called Bogosian “the dented car fender of the American Soul,” and his version of Molloy is said to be “an investigative journalist nearing the end of his career who’s given a second chance at the interview of a lifetime.”
In 1988, while Cage was kissing vampires, Bogosian co-wrote and starred in “Talk Radio,” based on his own play, for director Oliver Stone. Christian Slater previously played Molloy in the 1994 film adaptation of Interview with the Vampire, where he was last seen sporting a nasty bite while riding shotgun in a convertible with Lestat (Tom Cruise), as the vampire cranked up the Guns ‘N Roses cover of “Sympathy for the Devil” on the car stereo.
Bailey Bass, slated to appear in Avatar 2 this December, has inherited the other main role of Claudia from Kirsten Dunst in Interview with the Vampire. The first season, set to air on both AMC and AMC+, runs seven episodes and it will jumpstart a new shared TV universe adapted from the books of the late Anne Rice. Mayfair Witches, which secured Alexandra Daddario (True Detective) as its lead and Harry Hamlin (Clash of the Titans) as a series regular this month, will be part of the same universe.
Vampires in America
“My first encounter with a vampire was in 1988.” There’s that year again. Not sure what’s so special about ’88, but Vampires in America is a two-hour Travel Channel special, currently streaming on Discovery+, which purports to be a documentary following “the only vampire hunters in the United States.”
They claim to “come from twenty-five generations of vampire hunters” and to have found evidence of bloodsuckers “operating in all fifty states.” In the trailer for Vampires in America, one of them says, “Bram Stoker was actually taking dictation from a vampire.” Another one estimates there are “at least 20,000 vampires nationwide.”
I wonder … are these guys serious, and are they really America’s only vampire hunters?
Morbius
Sony Pictures Entertainment has released the final trailer for Morbius, its long-gestating, Spider-Man-adjacent flick based on the Marvel Comics character, Morbius the Living Vampire. The trailer starts out with a very familiar scenario, seen in other comic book movies like Batman Begins and The Incredible Hulk, where the title superhero picks off goons from the shadows.
Jared Leto stars as Dr. Michael Morbius. I can’t say I’m too excited about this one overall, but as you can see above, there are a couple of money shots in the trailer where the CG design of Morbius when he’s in vampire mode does look pretty darn cool (even if he’s rocking a ratty little mustache).
You be the judge. Morbius hits theaters next Friday, April 1, 2022.
This Generation’s Slayer
Speaking of Spider-Man, Sarah Michelle Gellar has named No Way Home and Dune star Zendaya as her pick for who should assume the mantle of Slayer in a potential Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot.
Gellar’s comment (“I vote Zendaya”) came in Evan Ross Katz’s new book, Into Every Generation a Slayer Is Born: How Buffy Staked Our Hearts. The book hit stores on March 15, 2022, just days after the 25th anniversary of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series premiere, and it explores “the history and cultural impact of a groundbreaking television show adored by old and new fans alike.” Kristy Swanson played Buffy in the original 1992 film.
Reginald the Vampire
In yet another case of someone or something Spider-Man-related dovetailing with vampire news, Hulu has nabbed the U.S. streaming rights to Jacob Batalon’s forthcoming Syfy show, Reginald the Vampire, based on the Fat Vampire book series by Johnny B. Truant.
Finally, since this post started with a Let the Right One In screenshot, it seems appropriate to end with news pertaining to that franchise.
‘Let the Right One In’ and ‘Smile’
In late January, news broke via The Hollywood Reporter that Terminator 3 and Carnivàle star Nick Stahl had joined Showtime’s Let the Right One In series opposite Madison Taylor Baez and Academy Award nominee Demián Bichir (A Better Life). Though the movie involved wolves, not vampires, Stahl was also memorably strung up, not unlike a Swedish blood-draining victim, in the 2020 IFC Midnight thriller, Hunter Hunter.
Meanwhile, there have been rumblings that Matt Reeves’ production company, 6th & Idaho, is behind a new Netflix vampire project “in the spirit of Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive.” Before helming The Batman (in theaters now), Reeves directed Let Me In, the American remake of Let the Right One In. The working title of this new project is Smile.